Efforts to raise rice prices to invite action: Minister

UNB News

Publish Date - February 12, 2019, 10:34 PM

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Dhaka, Feb 12 (UNB) - Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Tuesday told parliament that the government has asked local administrations to take legal action against those trying to raise rice prices through creating an artificial crisis of the staple.

“The prices of daily essentials, including that of rice, are stable due to intensive monitoring by the government,” he said.

The minister came up with the remarks while replying to a question from Awami League MP Selim Altaf George (Kushtia-4).

Munshi instructed all the divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners to take legal action and prevent the evil efforts by unscrupulous businessmen to hike the rice prices by creating an artificial crisis despite having its adequate stocks.

Replying to a starred question from the treasury bench member Waresat Hossain Belal, Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder told the House that the country’s current food grain stock is 15,30,317 metric tonnes.

Of the stock, he said, 1,349 tonnes are paddy while 13,53,442 tonnes rice and 1,75,526 tonnes wheat.

“We’ve 2,722 silos for food grain storage and seven for wheat across the country,” the minister said.

He also said the warehouses can preserve 21,18,822 tonnes of grains at a time.